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Message: <blockquote data-quote="zarionofarabel" data-source="post: 9771412" data-attributes="member: 7026405">How would having it written down beforehand change anything though? Isn't it just as easy to change your preplanned stuff to "help" the NPC as it is to just make up an advantageous situation on the fly? I don't see how having stuff prepared ahead of time would have any effect on whether or not a NPC can fail as a GM can easily change whatever they want whenever they want. Prep or not, if the GM wants the NPC to win, they can, simple as that. That's really the reason I don't preplan stuff, because when I did long ago nine times out of ten it either got completely bypassed or needed to be changed anyway, so why take the time to prep, just wing it. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm biased towards my NPCs losing, cause that's mostly what happens.I'm pretty sure I do that through verbal description, by describing the space as the PCs would experience existing within it. Sometimes I will quickly sketch a very rough map of a place if the finer points of the space are an absolute need to know. Though doing so beforehand would be difficult as I rarely know where an important location might be, or when I will need said location.Yeah, PCs destroying cool stuff I've prepped was the cusp of the reason why I decided to go the "ad lib" route. That, and because I am a self taught GM (1988) from a little town where no one had any idea what a TTRPG was. I literally had no idea that having a prepared plotline for the players to follow was even a thing until I had been running improv campaigns for several years. The few times I tried prepping stuff always turned out to be a complete waste of time as I ended up having to improv everything anyway, hence why I do it that way now.I'm not sure I follow.</blockquote>

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